Venue – Leeds Travelling Man (Leeds Warmachine)

Event – Gargantuan Coin Event  

Date- 19-01-14

Okay so this is my first my first battle report. I wasn't taking notes and I don’t know every single model of my opponents lists etc, but hopefully should give a good over view of my how my day went., what worked and what didn't.

This was my first event of 2014 and like most my first event running with the new 2014 steamroller rules. I had a quick look through the scenarios and got a bit more of a detailed insight into it from listening to the latest chain attack episode. The main thing I took from this is the ability to measure the kill box during your casters activation, and the ability to measure if anyone is contesting a flag at any point during your turn.

My main 2 casters through 2013 had been a eIrusk an armour, no knock down, tough,  brick and eSorscha bringing a mix of high defence through the winter guard and high armour with the black dragons. The eIrusk list is affective but not fun to play and can have some bad match ups. The eSorscha list is more fun to play and has had some good success however it’s not exactly anything new. With this in mind I decided to change things up a bit and start 2014 with some new lists.

Like many I’m awaiting the general release of B3 and seeing a lot of Khador players teaming him up with pSorscha. My only experience with pSorscha has not been amazing due to mainly playing her and getting stomped when I first started playing, however I decided against infantry spam there’s probably not a better caster to put down and practise only helps. I knew I wanted to run a full death star with here and a lot of shooting to take advantage of the feat.

The list I ended up with was:

pSorscha

Spriggan

Sylys

Reinholt

Doom Reavers

Aiyana + Holt

Widowmakers

Winter guard Infantry

2x Rocketeers

Winterguard Officer and Standard

Kovnik Joe

Winter Guard Mortar Crew

Gorman

Harlen Versh

Gun Carriage

I was not sure about the gun carriage as I haven’t had much practise with it but with 9 points to spare and not wanting another jack to feed focus to I stuck with it. It was that or a devastator to go stand in a zone which didn’t seem quite as fun.

This led me to my second list, I had infantry spam sorted, now I wanted something to really bring the pain to high armour jack /beast heavy lists. This was a gargantuan coin event so was expecting to be playing a lot of trolls, legion etc. pButcher usually fits this roll quite well and I have run him a few times at 35pts using his claws of the dragon tier with double Pikemen. It’s fun but with no guns it can really suffer, that and hiding pButcher becomes difficult which means I’m always in fear of some janky assassination. This led me back to eSorscha, small base to hide behind the Pikemen, an iron flesh caster (def 16 arm 22 is a thing) the ability to rfp with shatter storm and a feat which has seen me remove 3 heavy’s in turn in the past.

I ended up with:

eSorscha

Conquest

Wardog

Battle Mechs (Min)

Great Bears

Iron Fang Pike Men x2

Black Dragon UA

Iron Fang UA

Iron Fang Kovnik x2

Eiryss Angel of Retribution

Saxon Orrik

Conquest makes up for my lack of shooting and the bond with eSorscha means if he’s not dead in one turn your stationary and looking at an angry conquest and most probably the Great Bears. Saxon hands out path finder, Eiryss draws a bit of attention away from the main force and the Kovniks help with manoeuvring the Pikemen, can control flags and zones as well as getting stuck in the late game.

So this was all theory and had no idea how it would pan out under the pressure of a competitive environment under timed turns but thought my lists answered a few questions as well as posing some of their own.

Round 1: Balance of Power

Opponent: Luke Foster

Faction: Circle

Caster: pKrueger

Caster Played: eSorscha

Highlights:

Krueger feats turn 1 and takes out half a unit of Black Dragons

I waste my feat and Conquest after a boundless charge ends up half a inch short of a warpwolf

I manage t swing the attrition back my way after a mix of Pikemen and great bears put two of his heavies into the ground

Many rounds of attrition later i’ve got 2 great bears, half a unit of Pikemen, a kovnik, 4 mechanics, wardog and eSorscha, with only Krueger left to take down.

Krueger needing to make something happen takes two free strikes off the Pikemen, one connects and I roll exactly what’s needed to finish him off.

Conclusion:

Lots of armour and cma attacks saw me through, Iron fleshed Pikemen are hard to remove. Probably my favourite game of the day, lots of rounds where it could have gone either way and came down to the wire but once Khador are up on attrition and our caster isn’t exposed to an assignation it usually only goes one way.

Round 2: Close Quarters

Opponent: Tom Sherlock

Faction: Retribution

Caster: Kaelyssa

Caster Played: eSorscha

Highlights:

Iron fleshed, iron zealed Black Dragons are a sight to behold.

eSorscha feats and the Great Bears wreck his only heavy

Backlash sucks on Conquest

eSorscha gets up on attrition

Tom scores a cheeky CP

Dice down is called 2 minutes into my following turn.

Conclusion:

Round times were a factor here, the previous round was the longest possible within Steamroller 2014, this round was the shortest possible which threw me .I was up on attrition, Tom had nothing left on the table to really threaten the Conquest and had over extended getting the first CP in the last round.  I was going through the motions of clearing a charge lane for Conquest to turn her into paste when dice down was called.

I should had been more aggressive as I could have scored a CP the previous round but due to the tricks Ret can play I didn’t want to put my caster in any sort of danger when I didn’t need to especially after taking a bit of damage from backlash.

Apart from that the list worked amazingly well, dealing out damage but also defending well, like I said def 16 arm 22 pikemen is a thing.

Also shield marching into combat when Kaelyssa feats is a pretty good solution.

Round 3: Incursion

Opponent: Nick Langrick

Faction: Cygnar

Caster: pHaley

Caster Played: eSorscha

Highlights:

With the choice of either pHaley or eHaley both with a stormwall I locked myself into pSorscha for the final round.

Right flag disappears

Gunmages, Storm Lancers, Stormwall  and the pHaley feat are doing some serious damage and I’m behind on attrition early on and can’t get into melee .

I decide scenario is the only way to stand a chance

Black dragons jam out the left flag while eSorscha moves over to dominate for 2 CPs

Next round conquest gets onto the middle flag and he and a kovnik clear the contesting models

eSorscha now only needs to clear Gorman from her flag to win. Boosted hand cannon shot misses but a boosted attack boosted damage razor wind finishes him off and I win with 5C CPs.

Conclsuion:

I find it hard against either of the Haleys and this game was no different. By the end of the game I had lost two full units of Pikemen but their sacrifice meant I could get the CPs I needed. Stormwall didn’t actually do much and didn’t get into Conquest. If I didn’t get the 3 CPS I needed in the last round it was over as everywhere was about to be seriously contested by some angry storm lancers running towards the flags with nothing left to stop them.

The change to incursion means you can risk taking one side with your caster but the mobility of cyclone means you can stay central then get out to either side quickly, jamming with Pikemen to stop people getting in to contest and racking up the points quickly.

Round 4: Fire Support

Opponent: Alan Watson

Faction: Legion

Caster: Saeryn

Caster Played: pSorscha

Highlights:

Being locked in to pSorscha against a beast heavy Saeryn list didn’t give me much hope

Alan over extends with Saeryn turn one to throw a knife a Doom Reaver, his beasts aren’t blocking LoS and is sat on 2 fury.

I see the only chance I’m going to get and go for the assassination.

Winterguard and the Spriggan get out of pSorscha's way

pSorscha wind rushes forward, advances and feats catching Saeryn and puts a boosted hand cannon shot into here for some damage.

Harlen Versh activates advances and puts four shots into here for some more damage

Widowmakers move and again start to whittle here down. Saeryn has made one transfer so far leaving her on one.

Gun carriage advances and hits her with its first shot which is transferred, the second shot does enough to finish her off.

Conclusion:

Looks like I got lucky but I was glad I saw the opportunity when it presented itself and didn’t make a stupid mistake with a caster I’m just picking up again, if there’s anytime for a cheeky assignation its probably round 4.

Results:

Despite my round 2 loss I still managed to finish second due to my strength of schedule, to top it off I also won best painted mini with my eSorscha, which was unexpected but greatly received as I now have enough travelling man store credit to take a bit of pain out of buying Butcher 3.

Overall I’m happy with my lists, pSorscha didn’t get a full run out so I see some possible tweeking the more play time it gets but the eSorscha list seems solid and managed to hold its own against Circle, Ret and Cygnar and can’t see at the moment where I would make any obvious alteration but only more table time will tell.